


before we met has faded

by meritmut



Series: though we cannot see the dawn [3]
Category: War Horse (2011)
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 01:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meritmut/pseuds/meritmut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This one is set after Jim's recovery in France, with Emily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before we met has faded

The first time he sees Emily out of her nurse’s uniform is the night he takes her to dinner in the town on the border of which the hospital lies. It’s a small gesture of thanks for her patience and kindness over the past weeks, and though she had waved his explanation away – told him that it is her job to tend those in need of care, that it’s nothing personal – James had noticed the way her eyes changed when he lifted a finger to lightly brush back a loose tendril of hair behind her ear; the dark pinpoints of her pupils had haloed out into traitorous caverns betraying the truth of her feelings. She hadn’t been able to resist the smile that unfurled across his gaunt features then, seeing the delight on his face for what it was.

Over the past few weeks Emily has been as much of a constant as she had been previously, when he lay blind in his hospital bed and she was his companion during the hours of daylight. They play cards now, when she is on her breaks, or walk together in the tiny garden behind the house the regiment has occupied. Sometimes she’ll sit between him and Major Stewart and read the English newspapers to them both. James smiles to himself as he remembers the way her fingers had brushed along his arm when she went to plump his pillow for him – oh, accidentally, he’s sure, recalling too the vivid blush that had spread across her face at the contact. Accidentally, but no less powerfully.

She, his fair siren, greets him at eight on the corner of the street in a soft green skirt that sways about her slender calves, her long, nut-brown hair transformed into smooth curls that bounce slightly as she waves him over.

Since regaining his sight, James has taken nothing of the world for granted. Even something so trivial and ephemeral as the flickering of the night wind, shivering through the sycamores that line the village street, is a sweet revelation to eyes that for a time saw only longing and implacable darkness; as he strolls towards Emily the captain takes in the way her hair flutters about her and the green of the dress brings out the jade flecks in her eyes, the way her smile widens the closer he gets until she’s beaming. He takes in the sweeping flush of delicate gooseprickles across her bare forearms and without hesitation offers her his jacket, feeling a swell of contentment within his ribcage when she accepts, only to slide it around his shoulders and curl herself under his arm so it covers them both. He’s not cold, and tells her so, but she merely smiles again and glances skyward.

Sure enough, within moments of Emily’s arm settling around his waist and his own laying across her shoulders, a gentle rain begins to fall from the sable sky and plucks here-and-there drops of warmth from his exposed skin, the coolness of the night leeching into its place. James pulls her close as they walk to shield her from the rain, but as they pass a small café she tugs away and turns to him. In her smile he sees not a rejection, however, but an invitation – an invitation to dance to the music drifting out through the coffee shop’s open door.

Suddenly there seems to finer thing in all the world than to dance in the light spring rain with this charming young lady, a world away from anything he has ever known before, so James encloses her slim-fingered hand in his own and draws her back to him, placing one hand at her waist as they begin to sway where they stand, alone in the night and the slow rise and fall of the melody.

For a moment she falls into his shadow as they turn on the spot and her eyes cloud over iron, and a fleeting memory of another pair of pale eyes crosses his mind. A figure from summers past, gone with the shifting winds of the seasons and, according to her last letter, affianced to another. He recalls those heady noontide trysts and compares them to this starlit second chance with something like relief. All those hours with her he had moved as if drunk, and overindulged in the idyllic ease of their many meetings in the halcyon summertime before the world fell apart. Even now the memories taste cloying, saccharine as an aftertaste and blurred about the edges, a fraying map of days long faded. Tonight is different. Tonight, with Emily smiling contentedly in the circle of his arms, her cool skin a balm to his own, he sees clearly as he never could before that the past is another room and its door, once shut, may never be reopened.

James doesn’t mind so much, though, when the future glimmers so brightly within his grasp. The war is not yet done in France but for him it is over, and he finds himself wanting for a softer touch than the battlefields have brought. Abandoning grace and caution for a split second he leans down, presses his lips to Emily’s and for a heart-stopping instant he wonders if she’ll pull away. Then her mouth shapes itself to his and her hands separate from him – only to rise and rest on his shoulders, then slide along his throat until she holds him, her fingers curving themselves around his smooth jaw as she kisses the memories from him and brands herself anew upon his skin. She is both fire and water, her blood a pulsing heat source vibrating out from her core even as the night air gilds her flesh with a thin wisp of rain and mist and her cool fingertips trace lines along his jaw.

With a sigh she pulls back, smiling, and the light of the stars is in her eyes when he rests his forehead against hers and whispers her name to the night.


End file.
